10 Times Wrestling History Repeated Itself
1. The Piledriver's Revenge
When Stone Cold Steve Austin fought Owen Hart at Summerslam in August 1997, he would be seriously injured in a botched piledriver reversal spot. As planned, Hart countered Austin's attempt at the move, reversing it into his own piledriver and sitting down into it, broke Austin's neck, temporarily paralysing him.
Somehow, Austin was able to finish the match, and in time, his style amended to compensate for the injury, he continued in his meteoric rise to the top of the industry, becoming the biggest star pro wrestling had ever seen. The incident took years off his career, though he'd be forced to retire early in 2003, almost as a direct consequence of Hart's mistake.
Scuttlebutt (like gossip with a premonition of doom) says that Austin had asked Hart to try the tombstone variation of the piledriver, where he would drop to his knees instead. Hart refused, airily convinced that his usual sitout version was perfectly safe. There was a reason that Austin was worried, however you see, in 1992 he'd been wrestling for New Japan Pro Wrestling as part of a WCW talent exchange initiative, and while wrestling Masahiro Chono, he'd run a piledriver reversal spot eerily similar to the one hed later attempt with Owen Hart, sitting down into it and breaking Chonos neck.
Five years later, the wheel would turn once more, and it would be Austin whod have his neck broken while on the receiving end of a botched sitout piledriver following a reversal spot. Creepy, but true.